glorycloud's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the very ecstasy of perfection motion It is 9:57 AM Sunday morning in the flow of life. I got up at 7:30 AM this morning. I really got up at 6:30 AM, but last an hour during the night. So my body does not know what time it is in Real Time. Carol just left to go to Covenant PCA. I am in my main study writing in my blogs. Outside the sun is shining. I was going to go back to bed once Carol left for church. Now I am writing so I will just write and maybe take a nap this afternoon. Yesterday afternoon I took a nap. Old men and old women take naps. When I got up this morning I found Carol in the living room reading her Bible. I got a cup of coffee and messed with our main computer. After messing with our main computer I ate breakfast and then wrote in my paper diary. I have been reading these books this morning- Holy Bible "A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation" by Martin Laird "A Summer of Hummingbirds: Love, Art, and Scandal, in the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, & Martin Johnson Heade" by Christopher Benfey "Field Notes From Elsewhere: Reflections On Dying And Living" by Mark C. Taylor I was telling Carol this morning that during the night I had one of my intense spiritual dreams. I remember in this dream repeating over and over this verse from the The Book of Habakkuk (OT) "For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the earth" Habakkuk 2:14. Also this morning I shared with my wife something I read last night in the above book "A Summer of Hummingbirds". I will quote from this book by Benfey- "For Bremer, an ardent abolitionist from Sweden, Cuba was a jarring clash of slavery and seductive natural beauty. Higginson found in her "march of flowers" an image of what he called "the ceaseless motion" of the natural world, in which "the apparent stillness, like the sleeping of a child's top, is in truth the very ecstasy of perfection motion.". . ." pg. 19 The other day when I was walking through the snow covered woods at Upper Macatawa Natural Area I stopped and listened/was aware profoundly of the stillness/silence but at the same I felt the energy "the ceaseless motion" all around me/inside of me "the very ecstasy of perfection motion" I lifted my voice to the Lord and prayed for Him to save us and bring us to glory/experience Eternal Life in Christ. What I read last night in "A Summer of Hummingbirds" I told Carol I had read in the book "Field Notes From Elsewhere" by Taylor. In this quote Taylor is reflection on what is creativity- "Though metaphorical, the invocation of inspiration and the muses is actually an accurate description of the creative process. The muses are, of course, one of the many guises of God. When creativity stirs, I do not write but an Other writes through me. I-the I-become(s) the vehicle for a Word that is not my own. In the moment of creativity, I am not (an) I-my name is but another pseudonym of an Other I can never know. If this creativity, which is never precisely my own, is of a piece with the creativity that is the origin of life itself, then "my" activity is but a moment in an infinite creative process. When the creator God becomes divine creativity, "my" words become the Word. Blasphemy is the only credible creed: I am God incarnate! Madness? To be sure, but divine madness." pg. 80,81 Mark C. Taylor In reading the above I was reminded of something I read in the book, "A Sunlight Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation" by Martin Laird- "To the conceptual mind this awakening differs from previous ones. This luminous, flowing Vastness is constantly present whether we turn our gaze within or without, for in this Vastness there is no within versus without. This ground-awareness does not joust with divine presence-versus-absence, for it embraces both. It is beyond any possibility of doubt, for awareness saturates both doubt and consent, and is silence embraces both fear and trust. It is as Teflon to both past and future. Untouched by time, but without being excluded by time, it is yet within time but without being contained by time. Too simple to come and go, it is the "fullness of time" (Gal. 4:4). When we look within, the "I" that looks is saturated by this Vastness; when we look without, this "I" is liberated of itself by its immersion in the very Vastness that indwells it (Jn 14:10; 17:22-23), much like the sponge that is immersed in the ocean depth that fills its every membrane. When the sponge looks out, it sees only ocean; when it looks within, it sees only ocean. We are graciously immersed in Jesus' own awareness of the simplest of facts: "He who sees me sees the Father" (Jn 14:7). "The Father and I are one" (Jn 12:45). To lose our life (Mt 10:39) is to find it "hidden with Christ in God" (Col 3:3), in the overflowing, simple suchness of what is." pg. 83,84 Martin Laird 10:50 a.m. - 2015-03-08 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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